Despite the roughness of the verse, there is a thrilling power in these lines. People in gilded houses, on silken couches, at ease among books, and friends, and literary pastimes, may sneer at the Covenanters; it is much easier to sneer than to die for truth and right, as they died. Whether they were right in all respects is nothing to the purpose; but it is to the purpose that in a crisis of their country's history they upheld a great principle vital to her existence. Had not these men held up the heart of Scotland, and kept alive the fire of liberty on her altars, the very literature which has been used to defame them could not have had its existence. The very literary celebrity of Scotland has grown out of their grave; for a vigorous and original literature is impossible, except to a strong, free, self-respecting people. The literature of a people must spring from the sense of its nationality; and nationality is impossible without self-respect, and self-respect is impossible without liberty. It is one of the trials of our mortal state, one of the disciplines of our virtue, that the world's benefactors and reformers are so often without form or comeliness. The very force necessary to sustain the conflict makes them appear unlovely; they "tread the wine press alone, and of the people there is none with them." The shrieks, and groans, and agonies of men wrestling in mortal combat are often not graceful or gracious; but the comments that the children of the Puritans, and the children of the Covenanters, make on the ungraceful and severe elements which marked the struggles of their great fathers, are as ill-timed as if a son, whom a mother had just borne from a burning dwelling, should criticize the shrieks with which she sought him, and point out to ridicule the dishevelled hair and singed garments which show how she struggled for his life. But these are they which are "sown in weakness, but raised in power; which are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory:" even in this world they will have their judgment day, and their names which went down in the dust like a gallant banner trodden in the mire, shall rise again all glorious in the sight of nations. The evening sky, glowing red, threw out the bold outline of the castle, and the quaint old edifices as they seemed to look down on us silently from their rocky heights, and the figure of Salisbury Crags marked itself against the red sky like a couchant lion. The time of our sojourn in Scotland had drawn towards its close. Though feeble in health, this visit to me has been full of enjoyment; full of lofty, but sad memories; full of sympathies and inspirations. I think there is no nobler land, and I pray God that the old seed here sown in blood and tears may never be rooted out of Scotland. LETTER X. MY DEAR H.:--